Lines, Vines, and Trying Times
by CrazyKitCat
Summary: Dead. The word that now described her best friend. Alone. The word that described her. Nate is gone but is Caitlyn really alone? Or did he make sure that there would always be someone to take care of her when he could no longer so himself? [Written after reading "My Sister's Keeper"]


**DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything other than the plot.**

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Suffering. Pain. Loss. Sadness. Forgetfulness. Numbness. Loneliness. Clarity. Relief. Peace.

All of these are present in isolation. All of these are simple reactions to being completely alone in a place, and she was alone. Alone within herself and her mind.

_Cancer_. The word that put her and many others through a pain that she didn't think possible until she had heard it being applied to her best friend. _Dead_. The word that now described her best friend. _Alone_. The word that described her.

Her best friend had been diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia, many years ago. Also known as APL, the cancer had slowly weakened his body over the years, and with it, everyone's hopes that he'd beat it. The doctors had fought it with medical treatments for many years as everyone else fought it with prayers. But in her eyes, they had failed. He had lost the fight. He was gone.

He was gone and she was alone.

* * *

"_I signed the form, you know." He managed to whisper to her._

_She turned to look straight at him. His skin tone matched the color of the sheets and pillows that surrounded his thin frame. His curly brown hair was gone due to chemotherapy and his once bright eyes were dull and broken after enduring so much treatment. He was dying and both knew it. He wouldn't make it through this time._

_Up until a few seconds ago she had been talking about the baseball game between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. While the game was still playing in the background, neither paying attention to it now. They were only focused on each other._

_He didn't have to specify which form, they both knew he meant the "Do Not Resuscitate" medical release form. He had signed it a few days ago, and she had been there when he had._

"_I know," she managed to whisper as her throat was choked up. They both knew that this was it. "Do you want me to go…"_

_He cut her off with two simple words. "Don't go."_

_She simply nodded and took his hand. "You'd live a hundred years if I could show you how, I won't desert you now," she whispered, quoting their favorite musical, Les Misérables._

"_Liar," he smiled sadly. "Can't say you won't try though."_

"_True, you know me too well."_

_They simply stared at each other for a few minutes, allowing a peaceful silence to engulf them._

_He smiled, "It's been a good ride though…I have to say that I don't regret a minute of it."_

"_But what about…?"_

_He blew off her question, "treatment was difficult, but you were always there. With you it was bearable."_

_With one look at the smile on his face, she felt the tears coming to her eyes as she felt a fist clamp around her heart._

"…_I'm scared," she whispered._

"_Don't be," he comforted her even in the last minute of his life. "I love you sissy, don't ever forget that," he said honestly._

"_I-I love you too bro-broa."_

_He smiled at her and closed his eyes. "Good game," she heard him whisper._

_She turned and saw that the baseball game was over. His team, the Yankees, had lost while hers, the Red Sox, had won._

"_It was, wasn't it?" she asked him. She didn't receive an answer._

_She sat with him as his breathing slowed. She stayed with him as the heart monitor reached a single monotone noise. She sat beside him until the hand she held went cold, and then she stood. She noticed that his family and friends had joined her in his room, but ignored them. She kissed both of his cheeks, his forehead following. She ended her goodbye by pressing a light kiss on his still lips before hugging his limp body and pulling the sheet over his head. After that she backed up towards the door, never breaking her line of vision of him. She only averted her eyes from the bed when she turned to run out of the open doorway and out of the hospital._

* * *

She had run straight to her grotto, as he had called it. He had never seen the hideaway himself, but had known where it relatively was.

She had thought that he was the only one.

She always came here when she wanted to escape. When he had been diagnosed, she had cried here. When he had relapsed, she had come here to escape again but hadn't cried. When he had relapsed this last time, she came here to pray. Now she didn't know why she was here, it was where her feet had taken her.

She didn't realize how long she had been standing there until a twig snapped right behind her. She jumped and spun around, throwing herself off-balance on her shaking knees. The perpetrator, her best friend's older brother, tried to catch her, but it resulted with her dragging him down with her.

"Are you ok?" he asked as soon as they had disentangled themselves.

"No," she snapped at him. "I just lost my best friend, A.K.A. _your_ brother, and then I got a heart attack when you mauled me."

He ignored her jabs and persisted, "I meant, are you _physically_ ok? Your ankle looked like it twisted funny."

As soon as he mentioned it, she felt the pain shooting up her leg from her ankle. She hissed in pain, giving him the answer he was looking for. He nodded and got up, she simply watched as he walked around until he came back to her with two relatively straight pieces of wood. She watched in silence as he tore a long strip of cloth from the bottom of his shirt to splint her ankle with. He spoke only when he had finished.

"Now, how are you holding up?"

Deciding that she should be honest with him since he had just ruined his clothes for her ankle, she opened up.

"Why him? He didn't do anything wrong. What did he do to deserve this?" she begged for an answer.

"Death is something that happens to everyone, it just turned out that God wanted him back a bit sooner than the rest of us," he replied calmly.

"But why _him_?"

"…I don't know."

After a few minutes of silence, she spoke again. "I'm not scared that I won't get through it, you know…I'm scared that we'll forget him."

"We could never forget him," he whispered back.

"I just c-can't believe he's really gone," she choked out as a single stray tear rolled down her cheek.

His hands were immediately on either side of her face as he moved to face her. "He's not gone. He never will be. Not as long as he remains with us here," he told her as he put one hand over the left side of his chest and the other over hers, indicating their hearts by doing so.

For some reason, this cliché moment was what caused her to break down into the tears for the first time since her best friend had been diagnosed. As sobs ripped through her chest, she bent over and buried her face in his lap. He didn't shove her away as she had expected, instead, he pulled her up onto his lap, and wrapped her in his strong arms. She reacted by burying her face in the front of his shirt and wrapped her own arms around herself. He made shushing noises as he rocked her back and forth, attempting to calm her as she let out her pain, fear, and sadness in the form of salty water droplets running down her face. After about 10 minutes, she realized that she wasn't the only one who was crying as he bent forward to release his own tears into her shoulder.

Connected by their common grief, the two friends comforted each other as they honored the memory of their brother and friend with tears of mourning.

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**AUTHOR'S NOTE: I know it's not very long and/or might not have a very good conclusion, but I wrote this a few years ago after reading _My Sister's Keeper_ for school, forgot I wrote it, and just found it... I know I probably had a lot better ending planned 2 years ago, but I actually like how it ends here... I dunno...**

**What do you guys think? Please review and let me know! I may go back and "finish" it if I get enough reviews requesting for me to continue the story to the end (which (if my memory holds correct) ended with Caitlyn (best friend) and Shane (brother) together as a couple after Shane tells Cait that Nate (dead) asked him to protect and take care of her when he died because he knew Shane was in love with Caitlyn...or something like that)... It depends on the feedback I get...**

**Even if you don't want me to continue the story, please let me know what you thought!**


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